Mezze for Daring Cooks

February 14, 2010 •

The 2010 February Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.

Once in a while, it’s nice to catch a break.

I do love challenges, I really really do, honest, but sometimes it’s okay, when you realize that it’s the day before Daring Cooks posting day and once again you’ve procrastinated the month away, sometimes it’s okay to be able to say to yourself, “Relax, these are things you’ve made before. Stop hyperventilating, why don’t you, and just make supper.”

So, pita bread and hummus. Delicious and familiar. Does it count as Daring that I mixed it up, just a little, by throwing a roasted red pepper into the hummus, making half the pitas with sourdough starter instead of yeast (best pitas I’ve ever made, by the way), and adding some za’atar-spiked olive oil and my favorite middle eastern dip, baba ghanouj, to the platter?

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and mix briefly to forma a shaggy mass. It’s OK if not all of the flour is incorporated at this point.

Turn the dough and any loose flour out onto the counter. Knead to incorporate all of the flour. At this point the dough should be soft and tacky (not sticky). If it’s not tacky, add a bit more water. If it’s sticky, knead for a bit, then add a touch more flour if it’s still sticky.

Continue kneading for 8 – 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Place the dough back in its bowl. Cover and ferment about 2 hours, or until approximately doubled in volume.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven, with stone, to 450F.

Turn the dough out onto an unfloured counter and knead it a few times to degas it.

Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and shape each into a ball. Cover with a cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.

On a lightly floured counter, roll each ball into a disc about 7 inches in diameter. They will be very thin. You can roll the first two or three, and then more as the first batch is baking.

Using a peel lightly sprinkled with semolina, transfer two or three pitas to the baking stone. (If you don’t have a peel, place the pitas on parchment paper and slide the parchment paper onto the stone.) Bake for 2 –3 minutes, until fully puffed. Don’t overbake or the pitas will be dry. (If a few don’t puff, they’ll still be delicious.)

Repeat with the remaining pitas. As they come out of the oven, wrap them in a towel to keep them warm.

I enjoyed this challenge too! And, like you I added roasted red peppers to my hummus. My pitas didn’t balloon the first time but I saved half the dough for future use and when I made them last night they worked perfectly – Go figure!

I had great success with this pita bread recipe!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!! Finally!!! You would think that it would be impossible to fail at making pita bread, but I’ve failed a couple times with other recipes. I’m going to use this one from now on, not to mention it uses copious amounts of starter!

Thank you Susan for this pita recipe. I made pita bread many times before but never with sourdough so I was happy to find this one and they were delicious. It’s probably the only way that I am going to make them from now on. I cooked them on the stove top as I normally do as I don’t have a stone yet but I ordered one for my toaster oven, I look forward to making them again soon and trying it that way. I had to do some guess work today because my scale gave out, a real nuisance!
Every time I look at one of your sourdough recipes, I feel inspired to make bread and I seem to always have more success with your recipes. Thank you for such a wonderful site and detailed “novice” proof instructions.